[OP: ]
The slime's eerie, unpleasant red glow rapidly faded, engulfing the area in an ominous darkness, as it unleashed its devastating attack directly at El, who was in the midst of casting her next spell.
The formidable assault surged forward, driven by the unrestrained power of the worried creature with a now exposed core, evoking a mix of anticipation and dread in El and Lucy that had driven him this far.
The crimson fog intensified, seeping into every crevice, enhancing the strength of the slime's attack and casting an eerie veil over their gripping clash.
They knew it was a powerful force so the two of them directly went out of the giant crater to avoid it by using their movement skills.
Eva's heart raced with a mix of worry and shock as she witnessed their emergence. But her concern quickly escalated when the cave was suddenly engulfed in a blinding, intense red light.
A pillar of crimson energy erupted from the depths of the crater, unleashing a devastating beam that pulverized anything unfortunate enough to lie in that slime monster's straight and unyielding path.
But thankfully, this line of deathray was going in the other direction from them so it was fine but, it was hot enough to melt the ice so there was a new white smoke from the evaporation engulfing the cave.
It could have been worrisome if the ice had melted and the core was lost again but, El had completed the spell so as soon as the red beam died down, she used the high spell on the area where the core was and froze the entire area around it.
The slime's regeneration powers were strong. Even with a thick sheet of ice covering it, that disgusting body was no slower to regenerate the area with its core than without it.
But the ice prevented the movement of the core so as El's spells froze the organ-filled squishy body of the slime, Lucy continued stabbing that one point to keep the core visible.
His stabs were strong enough to reveal that core a few times, something the slash attacks and cuts couldn't exactly achieve in this situation, but the slime was strong and angry, and it wasn't giving up.
The slime attacked the two of them with all it had. It used normal hand-like hands with wiggling fingers, made his squishy body into claws of creatures it was made of, which looked even more disgusting, shot spikes made of bones with a speed and power resembling bullets, and still, Lucy slashed through them the same way he cut down the spear-like tentacles.
The slime was getting angrier and angrier with each passing moment, as it saw the approaching darkness, but Lucy and El's stamina was depleting far more rapidly than that guy's.
The slime was stronger than them but combined as one, the two of them were at least giving it a solid fight.
Lucy was handling the close-range fighting while El was helping him with buffs and magic spells.
The slime was strong even with its unsightly looks, showing the genius of its creator.
It had a unique body so the magic of only ice, thunder, and metal attributes worked against it.
However, all the properly powerful spells of these basic higher attributes took longer to cast with her lower Mana pool.
She had to do multiple mental processes to cast the spells with what little Mana she had and use Mana potions after that.
The potions were scarce even though her Lucy had prepared extensively even for the worst but the strong slime wasn't slowing down anytime soon.
They were fighting it with all they had got, they were fighting with everything they had on the line in this mere
There were scars on their bodies from the attacks of this slime, their armors were torn down from the weirdly sharp things the slime had started throwing, their stamina was already reaching the bottom, and their bodies were becoming heavy.
But still, their eyes were glowing red and blue, they still had the power to go on, there was still a smile on El's face, and there was still utter seriousness in the eyes of her Lucy as he thrust, stabbed, and stabbed his red sword into this regenerative chunk of a disgusting piece of shits.
The place he was hitting was the same and now, just like they knew, the regeneration power of this one place was getting weaker.
The cells were becoming permanent from the repeated regeneration. The slime itself didn't know about it but the frozen part of its body was slowly becoming permanent and once this permanent part was destroyed, it wasn't going to regenerate again.
That had been the plan from the start so they were perfectly aiming for a single spot from the moment they found its core.
And now… that moment had come.
"Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!"
The slime screamed just like it had been doing for the last few hours.
It had taken them a while after they found the core but it was finally time.
-Thuck!
With the last thrust, Lucy broke the permanent skin, revealed its core perfectly, and backed off.
[ "It's time…" ]
El looked so pale it was like her skin itself had become icy now. She had worked hard and so did Lucy as he was in just as bad of a condition as her.
But he was smiling as he nodded at her question.
[ "Wish me luck." ]
He was going for the last attack that would end things and she had to give him her luck so… she kissed him.
Sadly on the cheeks but it was fine.
He smiled and kissed her cheek back as the two of them avoided the relentless attacks from the slime and after that, Lucy got ready.
Holding his sword with both hands this time, he took a stronger pose than before.
This was different from most stances he used in this long battle, so this was the strongest possible thing he could do for now.
So, he took the pose, raised his red sword high with both his hands in the air, closed his eyes, took six shallow breaths and three deep ones, covered his sword and hands with a dense Aura, went back to the old crimson gate in the middle of an endless water plain deep in his mind and, pushed the door of the old gate…
'Crimson slash.'
He vanished from his place and at the same time, the countless hands coming towards El were cut in small pieces.
"Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!"
Its arms were cut off again but this was strangely more painful than previous times, but even more painful was what came next.
-Click.
A clicking sound reverberated through the cave as Lucy appeared on the other side and put his sword back in its sheets at the same time as… a red slash mark, multiple holes, and countless cutting marks appeared on the body of the slime where the core was visible or... was visible would be more appropriate.
The place where the core was previously visible was now destroyed and the core itself was nowhere to be seen.
Maybe it vanished with the gorgeous red light that appeared for a brief moment but the core of this slime was gone so…
"Kha-haaa-ha-a..."
The gruesome body of this creature fell to the ground and the eye-like purple part and red pupil vanished into the squishy body parts of the slime…
So, ultimately, laying above a crater full of monster insides, eyes, hearts, lungs, claws, and teeth, the two young people that came out victorious in this grand battle, finally took a sigh of relief.
"I'm hungry…" Lucy was definitely hungry. That last attack squeezed every last bit of energy he had left. So if something comes to fight them again, he would have no other choice but to offer his body without resistance.
"Eat me. I'm pretty cool right now so it will be sweet."
Yeah, well, she wasn't joking. She would be up and naked if he asks for it. But she was out of energy too to even take off those torn-off clothes.
So the duo laying on the ground looked up at the ceiling as they heard a voice just when Eva also walked beside them and sat down with a bitter smile.
[Congratulations! You have cleared the
[Congratulations! You have cleared a dungeon with restrictions from higher beings. Increasing the rewards.]
[Congratulations! You have a party member with unharmed physical status. Increasing the rank of achievement.]
It was finally over. They had finally finished their very first dungeon after almost a month-and-a-half-long struggle.
It was an overall good experience and they had definitely gotten stronger and received many great things and bad experiences.
But it was over now. They can go out of this horrific place now that things were over.
But before that… It was time to receive the sweet rewards of their hellish efforts. And of course, to call their cute little kitten.